


He Loves Me Not

by Ywain Penbrydd (penbrydd)



Series: Vexation of Spirit [18]
Category: Criminal Minds (US TV), Shadow Unit
Genre: Case Fic, Dismemberment, M/M, Stalking, Valentine's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-31
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 8,473
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22047040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/penbrydd/pseuds/Ywain%20Penbrydd
Summary: On the thirteenth of February, the day before Valentine's, Chaz comes into the office early, only to find himself surrounded by the smell of tea roses and the start of a case. From the initial evidence, he and his old friend Spencer Reid can't even tell if they're investigating an abduction or a murder.
Relationships: Minor or Background Relationship(s)
Series: Vexation of Spirit [18]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1058681
Comments: 17
Kudos: 11
Collections: The Good; The Morally Ambiguous; and The WTF





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by Anonymous in the [ambiguously_anomalous](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ambiguously_anomalous) collection. 



> >   
> The obligatory Holiday Episode! Someone gets up to something with a bit of festive flair. Is it stripping down to peppermint nipple pasties and a Santa hat? Is it a Headless Horseman style case? Is the Easter Bunny real -- and out for blood??? Writer's choice! Can be with or without smut, but someone should probably still swear at some point.

Chaz was, as usual, the first to get to the office, in the morning, if 'before sunrise' really counted as morning. He wasn't usually _this_ early, but he couldn't sleep, and he really had to get out of the house. Today, the smell was the first thing he was aware of, coming into the room, the cloying scent of tea roses that sped up his heart, that made him wonder, even after all these years, if he was just dreaming. His wrists ached, and for just a moment, he could swear he felt his throat closing against the smoke that wasn't there.  
  
Who the hell--? But, no. Everyone on the team knew better, and none of them were here, yet.  
  
He went looking for the source of the smell, but every step was dizzying, as if the room were changing shape around him, as he moved, and after a moment, he figured out he was doing it to himself. Possibly to anyone else in the room, had there been anyone else in the room, but there couldn't be. There was nowhere large enough to hide a person in here. Not effectively, anyway. Wrangling the Anomaly and his own insecurities back out of his way, he stepped up onto the corner of Tan's desk, and he could see almost everything. There was no one. There was just the overpowering smell of roses.  
  
He edged back into the hall and took a few deep breaths. He'd never thought he'd be grateful for the smell of industrial carpet cleaner, but here he was. And Spencer was probably down the hall, or he would be, soon. _Spencer_... No, Spencer would also know better. And absolutely wouldn't have done it at work. They'd been careful about that. Still, it wouldn't hurt to ask.  
  
The elevator doors opened, just as he turned the corner at the end of the hall, and unsurprisingly, there was the man he was looking for. "I was just looking for you."  
  
"Yeah, I figured that out three blocks ago." Reid raised his eyebrows and held out a cup of coffee. "You want to tell me what's going on?"  
  
Chaz took the coffee, popped the lid off, and just breathed in the scent of it. "Someone's bathed our offices in the smell of tea roses."  
  
"Valentine's day is tomorrow, and I'd suggest some kind of seasonal festivities, but I'd think your team are more the candy hearts and chocolates types." Reid nodded to the glass door across from them, _his_ team's side of the floor. "Let me put my coat down. You're sure there's no one still in there? Of course you are, or you'd have opened with that."  
  
"I didn't make it all the way into the room, but standing on a desk didn't make anyone apparent. I'd have at _least_ seen feet or a shoulder, even if someone was crouched behind a desk." Chaz followed Reid across the room. "But, the real question, here, was... It's not Frank, is it? You know better, but I don't think we _told_ him. I know I didn't. But, it sounds like exactly the kind of romantically stupid shit he'd do."  
  
"Yes, but he'd have done it for _me_ , not you," Reid reminded him, shrugging out of his coat and tossing it over the back of his chair. "And, knowing him, he's probably going to do something very much like that, _tomorrow_. It's a day early. If there's one thing I've learned, he's ... bizarrely, and sometimes inappropriately, punctual. _Christmas_." He patted his pockets and checked his desk drawers. "I'm assuming we're treating this like a crime scene, until we figure out what's going on?"  
  
"Yeah, that's probably for the best. I'm going to leave my coffee on your desk, so it doesn't get gross. The smell is _really strong_ , and I just don't want to end up drinking it." Chaz led the way back across the floor. "I keep thinking, I have my share of exes. Angry exes, even, but none of them would be able to get into the building, and really definitely not in the middle of the night. And none of them, I mean _none of them_ , would know enough to do this. I'd expect some more traditional bad breakup vengeance, if anything, but it's been _years_." He paused, one hand on the door, and maybe more for himself warned, "Take a deep breath."  
  
The instant the door opened, it was like getting punched in the face with the smell, again, but this time, Chaz was expecting it, and he held himself together.  
  
"It's not actually that strong," Reid observed, after a moment. "You're latching onto it because you know it and you fear what it means, but as someone without that attachment, it's almost pleasant. It's like someone's plugged in one of those electric air fresheners."  
  
And that hadn't occurred to Chaz. "It might _be_ one. Still doesn't solve how it got up here, but it might just be an air freshener, and then I'm going to look like an idiot."  
  
"Not to me," Reid said, quietly. "We've all got something."  
  
"If it _is_ an air freshener," Chaz postulated, leaning over to check the power strip between two desks, "it's probably just the cleaning staff trying to brighten the place up."  
  
"Then why didn't we get one?" Reid asked, from the other side of the room.  
  
"Maybe they just don't like you."  
  
It wasn't until Reid came around the side of Todd's desk that he noticed something out of place, the few leaves and part of a blossom that showed between the back of Chaz's chair and the edge of his desk. He pulled the gloves out of his pocket and circled the desk, pulling them on. "Chaz? It's not an air freshener."  
  
"What do you mean it's--" Chaz turned around, the world narrowing to Reid's hands on his chair. "That's my desk."  
  
"It's a dwarf tea rose, in a pot, on your chair." Reid turned on the desk lamp and crouched down for a better look. "And it's _definitely_ a crime scene."


	2. Chapter 2

Chaz had finally given in and wiped Vicks under his nose. Some people did it for autopsies, but he was standing in a room with a flowering plant and half a crime scene team, trying not to vomit from the smell of roses. It wasn't usually this bad, but he also didn't tend to run into these particular roses in unexpected places. he could go into flower shops, because they were _supposed_ to smell like that, and unless he was there for a case, he just avoided rose gardens. But, to have walked into it in the office... the whole thing put him on edge, right from the start, and what they'd found in the pot wasn't helping.  
  
He held the charm in his hands, examining the chain, examining the construction of the glass ball, like a tiny Christmas ornament, that held their first sign that this was far more serious than a prank -- the bloodless tip of a pinky finger, dark skin turned ashy, the nail painted white with a pink heart. The chain had been fastened around the base of the miniature rose bush, hanging over the card taped to the side, which read: 'He loves me'.  
  
Sol Todd appeared at his shoulder, a little too short to make out what he had in his hands.  
  
"Villette, I ask this with the utmost professional courtesy, but what the fuck?"  
  
"A woman's finger, I think."  
  
"In _here_?"  
  
"In my desk chair, wrapped around the bottom of a dwarf tea rose." Chaz let the charm dangle from his gloved fingers. "We're still trying to figure out how to disassemble it without damaging it, so we can get a print."  
  
"You put it in an evidence baggie and you drive it over to Frost. It's a severed finger. It's her problem."  
  
Chaz shook his head. "It's in my chair. It's _my_ problem."  
  
Sol reached up and rested his hands on Chaz's shoulders. "It's in your chair. That's why nobody would let you touch it with a ten foot pole, if they were here. And I'm retired, so it's not like it's my jurisdiction. Now, are we taking that to Frost, or are you going to let Falkner send you down the hall for a week, while Brady and Lau clean this up? She'd have to, you know. By the book."  
  
A slim smile crossed Chaz's face, and he held the charm out to one of the evidence techs. He knew Sol was right, and he wasn't going to let this case out of his hands, which he knew was exactly why he shouldn't be working on it. And that had never stopped him before. At least this time, he had backup. "You can bag this, now. I'm pretty sure the finger is real, and that means we're going to have to get the ME to open it. I'll run it up there. I know some people I can probably get to skip us ahead of today's post-mortems, if I can get it there fast enough."  
  
"People like you are why I can never get anything back from the ME in a reasonable amount of time," the tech muttered, sealing the bag and signing it over to Chaz.  
  
"No, that's people like our unsub." Chaz looked as innocent as he could manage under the glare the tech gave him, and then slid the evidence bag into his pocket and headed for the door, beckoning for Reid to follow him.  
  
"Thoughts on the note?" he asked, once they were in the elevator. "And are we taking my car or yours?"  
  
"I don't know where we're going, and you're not driving my car."  
  
Sol nodded at Reid. "An excellent choice."  
  
"So, looking at the note, there's a few ways to take it. We've got 'he' and 'me', and I think we can be relatively sure from the size of the fingertip that 'he' is not the victim. So, either the unsub's talking about himself -- which assumes a male unsub, and I'm really not sure about that -- or the 'he' in question is _you_. Alternately, there's an unknown third party whose approval is important. 'Me', at first glance, could be the unsub. You or the third party are presumed to love the unsub. If 'me' is the _victim_ , this could be a warning to you or the third party to come find the one you love. Or, this could be a demonstration of what the unsub's love looks like." Reid closed his eyes and tipped his head back, still talking as he followed Chaz out of the elevator, mostly unaware of the way Sol watched him. "In this particular context, I don't think the roses are supposed to be the kind of important they are to you. I think that's an accident. So, we have a gift of roses -- symbol of romance -- with a card that explicitly suggests love, but in an unusual fashion, and a piece of jewellery -- also usually a token of love -- with a body part potentially severed from one side of the note's relationship. I don't think it's a coincidence that tomorrow is Valentine's Day. I think this is supposed to continue and perhaps conclude, tomorrow, potentially with the rest of the body. And you're invited. Specifically, you."  
  
"Where's Hafidha?" Sol asked, passing through a door Reid held open, watching Reid's eyes finally leap open at the question.  
  
"Most likely in a cab, and probably going to kick my ass for making her take one?" Chaz glanced over his shoulder. "What-- Oh. No, her nails would never have been white. They're black and red again, this year."  
  
"I still think you should call her. I'm not sure we should be assuming the victim painted her own nails."  
  
"Duke, she was still in bed, when I left the house. You know how I drive. There's no way someone could've broken into the house, after I left, and gotten here before me. That's not how physics--" Chaz stopped cold, keys dangling loosely from his fingers. "You know what? I don't get to say that, do I?"  
  
"Not really, no." Sol plucked the keys out of Chaz's hand and unlocked the passenger door, gesturing to Reid. "You should probably get in the car before you freeze. Are we sure you're not one of _them_?"  
  
"Not even a little bit." Reid watched Chaz make a call, as he got into the car, and Sol got in behind him. "I probably should be, but it just... never happens. I don't think the Anomaly is terribly fond of me."  
  
"Not gonna tell me how you made it almost all the way to the car with your eyes closed, are you?"  
  
"Finely-honed skill." Reid was not about to admit that he'd just taken the exact same steps Chaz had taken, but on a delay. He was absolutely not going to admit that Chaz was anomalous enough for both of them and that he occasionally took advantage of that. Or that he could feel Chaz's relief when Hafidha answered the phone with a threat to his favourite casserole pan. The signs after that were easy enough to read -- Chaz's ducked head and sheepish look, as he paced back and forth explaining what was going on.  
  
"A man of few words and many secrets." Sol nodded sagely, his eyes on Chaz.  
  
"Not if you ask my team!" Reid changed the subject. "Why did you think it was Hafidha's finger?"  
  
"Spencer-- Can I call you Spencer?--"   
  
"Not in the field."  
  
"Same as him. You don't look your age, and nobody takes you seriously." Sol caught Reid's surprise in the mirror. "Hey, I did this for a lot of years. But, as a man missing some fingers, I have a different awareness of people's hands, and I've worked with this team a long time. I can tell you it's someone with hands about the size of hers, which is a lot less useful than it sounds, since it's obviously not her, but better to check. Better to warn her, just in case."  
  
Chaz pulled open the driver's side door and poured himself into the car far more gracefully than one might expect, given that it was such a small car and he was such a tall man. As soon as the door closed, behind him, he held out his hand for the keys, and Sol gave them back.  
  
"I don't think I'm the target, here," he said as he started the car. "This isn't someone on my Christmas card list. There's only one of my exes it could have been, and it's not her. So, I think we can mark off an implied relationship between me and the victim."  
  
"You called to check on her?" Sol didn't quite catch Chaz's eye in the mirror, as they turned onto the street, and he knew that was intentional.  
  
"Hafs checked. They're friends, and you know that."  
  
"Yeah, but I thought you might finally have gotten over--"  
  
"I'm not going to. _And_ I'm not going to talk about this. Probable missing woman. Definite severed fingertip. Don't we have other things to talk about?"


	3. Chapter 3

"The person this fingertip came from was most likely alive or recently dead, when it was severed," Frost informed the agents who were hovering just a bit too close for their own safety. "There are no signs of professional preservation or the kind of tissue degradation one would expect if it had been removed from a corpse. It has been soaked in alcohol, likely so it wouldn't decay before you found it, and it's still wet, which indicates it was placed in the capsule shortly after being removed from the alcohol. But, the capsule is tight enough that I'm not inclined to speculation on how long it was kept like that. I will say the finger was disarticulated cleanly and likely within the last eight hours, ten at the outside."  
  
"And we've had it for about two hours, so not longer than eight." Chaz nodded.  
  
"Given the angle of the cut and the curve along this edge, this is from the left side. I'm surprised you didn't notice that, Mr Todd."  
  
Sol tipped his head, acknowledging that he hadn't noticed. "There was glass and an evidence bag in my way. You see why I thought it was Hafidha's though."  
  
"Yes, but you're wrong. This person doesn't type nearly as much as she does. There's none of the callusing on the fingertip, and no signs that it's been removed recently." Frost picked up the tweezers she'd used to open the capsule, and pressed against the end of the fingernail, gently, looking at the cuticle. "The nail isn't real. Had it been, the alcohol would have loosened the polish. This is some sort of acrylic, and the plastic itself is dyed."  
  
"Press-on nails," Reid ventured, and Frost pulled a light down for a better look.  
  
"Yes, they probably are, but this is a much stronger adhesive. Hand me--" She hadn't finished the sentence when Chaz put the tool in her hand. "If only all of my assistants could read minds."  
  
Silently, he helped her collect samples of the tissue, glue, and nail, the two of them working together as if they had been for years. Reid watched them, wondering then, exactly how much Sol had figured out without being told. If this was normal, how unusual could -- Oh. Right. Because there was still a difference between Chaz knowing what someone wanted before they asked for it and echoing his motions. Still, on the list of things Sol Todd wasn't, stupid was near the top of the list.  
  
"I'll send you a report once the lab gets back to me." Frost sealed the jar she'd placed the fingertip into and peeled off her gloves. "I realise you'd like the answers now, Agent Villette, but until you find someone who can travel through time, you will get the results when they come in."  
  
"Thank you, Madeline. Could you--"  
  
"Put it in as a missing person, so it defaults to high priority? I do know how to prioritise my orders." Frost peered at him over the tops of her glasses. "Do get out of my office, Charles. I have work to do."

* * *

"I'm still concerned that this is the unsub fixating on you, whether or not you know the victim _personally_ ," Reid said, as they crossed the parking lot. "Frost said she's not sure the victim isn't recently deceased, so we may be looking at someone sending you trophies."  
  
"Like a cat dragging in dead mice," Sol offered, pulling his hat down further, as Chaz unlocked the car. "Stand out here too long, and _I'm_ going to lose another finger. Whatever happened to mild coastal winters?"  
  
"Global warming." Reid slid into the passenger seat and slammed the door. The jolt to the car popped open the glovebox, which disgorged a short-stemmed bouquet of dried flowers into his lap, with a chain wrapped around them. He could see the back of the tag, and he could guess what was between the flowers and his thigh.  
  
"Oh, crap." Sol leaned over the back of the seat. "Oh, fucking hell. In your _car_?"  
  
Reid pressed himself against the back of the seat, staring warily down at the 'present' in his lap. "I can't get my hand into the pocket I keep my gloves in, at this angle, so someone should pass me a pair." He swallowed and held out a hand. "Chaz? Please get an evidence bag. Two. Two evidence bags."  
  
"Looking a little green there, Reid." Sol put a pair of gloves in the outstretched hand. "But, it's a reasonable response to getting groped by the disembodied finger I'm assuming just hit you in the crotch."  
  
"This is happening very quickly," Reid pointed out, unnecessarily, as he pulled the gloves on. "We found the first fingertip less than three hours ago. This is the second joint -- we hope this is the second joint. Because if it's not--" He looked up as Chaz got into the driver's seat holding the evidence bags. "If it's not, we need to get an evidence team to your house."  
  
"Let's bag this, and I'll make some calls. Whether or not this is the second joint, my desk and my car, so the obvious next step is my house." Chaz held a bag open as Reid picked up the bouquet, carefully, trying not to dislodge any more petals or leaves. "That smells like--"  
  
"Basil. And pretty strongly, now that the leaves are broken." Reid tipped the bouquet to get a better look. "Basil, tansy, and... thistle. Oh. Great." He looked at his hand with a weak smile. "That's... that's just great."  
  
"Let me guess: nobody rubbed the spines off." Sol sighed and reached between the seats. "Okay, hold still. Let me get the chain off it, and you can put it straight in the bag. I'd ask who the hell would put basil in a bouquet, but then I remember who it's for."  
  
"Yeah, I'm.." Chaz nodded, still holding open the evidence bag and trying to catch any broken bits of foliage. "I'm thinking whoever this is does know me, on some level."  
  
"Still not actually about you, even if it's for you." Reid tucked the bouquet into the bag and peeled off the glove with it, just to be safe. "I'm fairly sure this is Victorian-era floriography. It's not difficult to find books on it, but it takes a certain set of interests to even be aware of it. Unfortunately, this may include mass-market romance novels, which doesn't help us. Still, I'm guessing the tag reads 'He loves me not'?"  
  
Sol held it up. "Got it on the first try."  
  
"All of these are symbolic of betrayal and ill-intent, particularly used together like this. But..." Reid looked at Chaz, realisation dawning on both their faces. "Fingers are a known quantity, and that's not going to end well."  
  
"There's an even number of phalanges," Chaz agreed. "He loves me not."


	4. Chapter 4

"What concerns me," Sol said, as they came off the bridge, "even more than the fact that you have a working tape deck in this rolling monument to the 80s, and that you've decided to keep a Shriekback album in it, is that we have no witnesses and no video. Our unsub walked into the DC field office some time in the nine hours none of us were there, and security has no record of anyone coming into the building in that time. The car was a little easier to get to, but you know what's going to happen, if we don't start turning up evidence the unsub exists."  
  
"I'm getting put on leave, again?" Chaz caught his eye in the rearview mirror. "Oh, trust me, that's occurred to me. 'Suffering from emotional problems and acting out'. But, we both know there's more than one way around that security system, and that's if you're only looking at me and Hafs. And I'm going to be a lot more comfortable if we're looking at someone doing it _her_ way."  
  
"She'll know." Sol nodded. "She'll know, and she'll find them."  
  
"And if they _are_ invisible?" Reid asked, checking his pants for broken thistle spines, again.  
  
"Then I'll find them." Chaz sighed and rubbed his forehead. "Assuming they'll get that close to me. So far, they've been just ahead of me, and there's no one there, by the time I get there."  
  
"You were pretty screwed up, this morning," Sol pointed out.  
  
"There was definitely not an invisible person, when we got to _the car_." Chaz took a turn a little too tightly, and Reid almost slid into his lap but for the seat belt. "I'd thought of it, by then. At five this morning, I was still expecting to find out I was _hallucinating_. Or maybe I wasn't quite awake. But, no such luck."  
  
"Wouldn't they be watching? And if they're not, _why_ not?" Reid picked a speck off his thigh and studied it. Hair, not a thistle spine. "Not all gift-givers watch the recipient, but most romantic obsession gift-givers do. And normally, that would be my first thought, with something like this, but not if they aren't watching you. Which suggests they probably _are_ watching, and we're not looking in the right place."  
  
"We weren't really looking at all. We handle serial cases, most of the time, which this isn't, yet. Normally, we're dealing with a lot more information right from the beginning. And the point stands -- there was no one at either scene, or within view of it, while we were there, that we didn't put there. This isn't someone hanging around just outside the tape." For a moment, Chaz seriously considered running a red light, before he remembered he was in his own car.  
  
"And this is why you should've left the car with the evidence team." Sol studied the neighbourhood, out the window. He'd visited Chaz before, but he couldn't remember the last time he'd had a case out this way. "And yes, I know why you didn't. The chances of finding something usable, after the lack of evidence at the office, was less important than being obvious bait. Still. If they're gonna start looking at you, you shouldn't be giving them ideas."  
  
"Right now, I don't know what's going on, and I _really_ don't want to be driving something less than twenty years old, until I do." Chaz caught Sol's eye in the mirror, again. "You know why."  
  
"I remember."  
  
Chaz's phone rang, and he handed it to Reid, who took a few tries to answer it.  
  
"Villette's driving, so you're stuck with me." Reid finally stopped checking for thistle spines. "And you're sure? No, I _know_ you're the best at what you do. But, you're absolutely sure there's no sign of a loop? ... Wait, what? Hang on, I'm putting you on speaker."  
  
He pushed the button and held the phone out. "Say it again?"  
  
Hafidha's voice filled the car. "There's about four seconds of video with someone on it, but it's the one from the hall that's aimed at the doors, and whoever it is is already inside. So, they're backlit in a dark room. And they don't leave it. They just stop being on the recording. The door never opens, the person never turns toward the camera. They just spend four seconds standing by your desk, Chaz, and then they're gone."  
  
"I don't want this to be what I think it is." Chaz sighed. "So, I'm just not going to say it."  
  
"Oh, good! We're thinking the same thing." There was enough artificial cheer in Hafidha's voice that Chaz was afraid he was going to have to wipe it off the edge of the seat later. "You've got the taser, right? Try not to tase yourself in the balls, this time."  
  
"In the leg," Chaz corrected. "I'm not really sure that's going to work, this time. Tasing the unsub, not myself. I can hear you thinking it from here."  
  
Hafidha paused. "Can you really, because--"  
  
"No, I just know you that well."  
  
"Why are we tasing the unsub?" Reid asked, eyeing Chaz curiously. "Not that I object to the plan, but generally there's a lot more steps before we get to the armed approach."  
  
Chaz didn't say anything for a long moment, thin lips held between his teeth.  
  
"Because we think they're teleporting," Hafidha finally said.  
  
Chaz finished the thought. "With the taser, there's a decent chance one of us can slow them down. One of _you_."  
  
"Him," Sol gestured at Reid. "I'm retired."  
  
Chaz made the last turn. "We're home. Keep an eye on the network, but I'm hanging up, because I really have to start paying attention, now."  
  
"Chazzie? Don't you dare get killed. I'll kick your ass." Hafidha hung up without waiting for a reply.  
  
"Duke?" Chaz finished parking and turned off the engine. "Take the taser. All you have to do is slow them down enough for me to see."  
  
"What about your good twin?" Sol asked.  
  
"Evil twin, thanks," Reid corrected, absently, checking his pockets.  
  
"The hell you are, kid. The hell you are."  
  
"Either way, I've been armed since before we left the office. You're not. You get his taser. We both know he doesn't need it, and we both know that just by being here, _we're_ more likely to upset the unsub." Reid nodded at Chaz. "He's supposed to come alone. You know how this usually works."  
  
"Instead, I show up with the guy who could out-gonzo Hunter S Thompson and the least anomalous person I know." Chaz twisted around in his seat to put the taser in Sol's hand.  
  
"Instead, the evidence team gets here _before you_ ," Reid reminded him, as they got out of the car. "Which reminds me, assuming this is a stalker with a romantic obsession--"  
  
"Count my underwear?"  
  
"Yeah, actually..." Reid looked pained. "But, what I meant to say was, no matter what happens, remember that you're in control. Put me where you need me. I'm... This is the third time, for me, and I'd really rather not repeat the first."  
  
Sol looked back and forth between them. "That is the most complicated way I've ever heard someone say 'don't get shot'."


	5. Chapter 5

It wasn't until he'd gotten word that someone had definitely been in his bedroom that Chaz remembered what he'd had hanging on the wall next to the closet door, and that every evidence tech in the house had probably seen it. He tried to keep the horror off his face, as he climbed the stairs, the other two behind him. And once they stepped into that room, there would be no keeping Sol from seeing it. _First, survive this,_ he reminded himself. Then he'd have time to worry about his reputation and potential violations of professional ethics.  
  
"What do you have?" he asked, standing in the doorway of his own bedroom, watching a tech he didn't know slide one of his nightstand drawers closed.  
  
"You need to see this," the other tech told him, gesturing at the part of the wall he dreaded having to explain.  
  
Chaz stepped into the room and turned to look at the framed print he'd gotten for his birthday, only to discover it slashed to bits, the face completely destroyed and the rest hanging in tatters. Well, one less thing he'd have to explain.  
  
"I'm assuming the picture was yours?" the tech asked.  
  
"Yeah. It's, ah... a long story. Short version, a friend painted a picture of me and gave me a copy for my birthday. I keep it up here so no one else winds up subjected to it." Chaz cleared his throat and shrugged self-consciously, to sell the lie. Better they think the shredded body was his own. He looked just enough like Reid that, without the face, no one would question it. "Have you found the next joint?"  
  
"No, but..." The first tech looked around the room. "Does anything else seem out of place? Anything we opened, we closed. Anything that was already open, we photographed and didn't close."  
  
"The laundry on the floor is my fault," Chaz admitted, "and the bed wasn't made when I left, but it also doesn't look right. Any fresh stains on those sheets aren't going to be mine. They _should_ be relatively clean."  
  
The first tech nodded. "We'll take the sheets. What about this drawer?" She tapped on the nightstand.  
  
"Ninety percent my ex girlfriend's," Chaz lied without even a pause. "Ten percent mine. I'll see if anything's missing, though. Or... new."  
  
"The finger's not there," the tech assured him, "but I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been."  
  
Sol snorted, stepping around Chaz to get a better look at the room. From what he could make out of the picture on the wall, there was no surprise Chaz had been keeping it out of the living room. That looked like it hadn't involved a hell of a lot of clothing. Really, it looked like it might've been some kind of holiday pinup, with the bare ankles and the bearskin rug, fire in the background... He wondered first if it had actually been Chaz, looking at the width of that ankle, but if it had been a gift, it was probably supposed to be flattering. If Chaz had actually sat for it, it was probably supposed to be _therapeutic_.  
  
"I would be," Reid ventured, after a moment. "A bedside drawer is too intimate, this early in the game. And it is a game -- a game we're supposed to lose. A game everyone loses, because there are an even number of phalanges in the human hand, and we started on 'he loves me'."  
  
"No." Sol shook his head. "It's only a game everyone loses if the unsub doesn't get caught, which they _want_ to be. These aren't _gifts_. They're _baiting_ him. The question is whether he's good enough to catch them."  
  
"It's somebody who knows you, Chaz. Not necessarily someone _you know_ , but someone already familiar with your work." Reid closed his eyes, put his hands in his pockets. "But, we knew that. This is someone targeting _you_ , not the unit. Someone who picked your desk and then your car. Someone who's obviously been in your home. The obvious choice would be someone who remembered you from a case, and travelled here to act out their fantasy, to get you to prove yourself to them. But, the obvious choice isn't the only one. It could be anyone you see fairly regularly. It could be, and I hate to say it, that barista you've been very intentionally not hitting on."  
  
Chaz winced. "Is it really that obvious?"  
  
"Only to me." Reid's chin tipped down and his brow creased. "The point is, this is someone who imagines they should have a relationship with you, but only if you're good enough. This is someone who knows what you do for a living, and has basically--"  
  
Chaz's phone rang again, and he held up a finger and answered it. "Didn't you just hang up on me? ... How many and _where_? ... You're sure about the measurements? Text me, and I'll look at them. ... Yeah. Yeah, okay, I'll call you when-- Trust me, there's ... I'm pretty sure you have video of that. No, I'm not going to hand someone the phone just so you can freak them out. You can freak them out when someone's not giving me bouquets with fingers in them. I'm the only person who gets to be freaked out right now, Hafs, and I really am _pretty freaked out_."  
  
He rolled his eyes and slipped the phone back into his pocket. "She's picked up our gift-giver on three more cameras. Three frames only, on each. It's less than half a second, but the locations are about fifteen feet apart. She's pretty sure she can track back through the building, but it's going to take a while. The lights in the hall give us a pretty clear idea of the person's size, but we still don't have details. We're looking for someone about five foot six, which cuts down the list a bit, and with thin wrists." He pulled up his sleeve and pointed to his own wrist. "This kind of thin. It's not the barista; she's too short, and she's too heavy. But, I've got a much shorter list, now, and I have to go call a vice cop in Baltimore, because I have an idea of where this person found me, and if anyone would know, he'd know."  
  
Reid eyed him. "I know what you're thinking, and yes, you should call Tory. And then you should get me a set of your pyjamas and a bulletproof vest, because I think we can accelerate the timeline without putting anyone but ourselves in danger."  
  
"Are you serious?" Sol studied Reid for a long moment, but got only a pointed look in response. He turned to the evidence techs. "He's serious. He's probably also right. You probably want to pack up and make a show of leaving. Maybe stop for dinner in town, though. If he's the kind of right I think he is, we're going to need you again in a few hours. Even if we do pick up the finger-snatcher stalking Agent Villette, we still have to locate the victim. Frost thinks, from the second amputation, that she's still alive."


	6. Chapter 6

They made a show of sending Reid's clothes off with the evidence techs. The chatter on the way out the door suggested that since he'd caught the last bouquet in his lap, it was important to check his clothes for any leftover evidence. Which was ridiculous, as Reid had argued at the scene, because the evidence would either be in the glovebox or on the bouquet, which was already bagged. His clothes only served as further proof of what sort of plants they were dealing with, which was obvious, at a glance.  
  
Sol seemed to leave with them, walking back from a few blocks out, and hoping the shit didn't hit the fan before he was back in position. The front window was Chaz's, which made the front door the obvious spot to watch, and he settled himself into place just far enough out to actually see into the room a bit, in the hopes that if anyone got past him, he'd at least know about it. He looked up just in time to catch Reid stepping into view, and he noted how well the pyjamas fit him, even over the vest, which really drove home the point about the two of them being about the same size, and again, his mind drifted back to the ruined painting. But, that was ridiculous. With everything he knew about Reid, he was an even _less_ likely subject.  
  
Upstairs, Reid tucked his hair behind his ear, making his face more obvious as he stepped up to where Chaz was gazing out the window. He slid a hand across Chaz's back, hand curling around his hip. "Is he in position?"  
  
Chaz slid an arm around Reid, smiling that couple of inches down at him. "I can see him." He kissed the middle of Reid's forehead and followed the curve of the eyesocket down. "If we're wrong, and I _can't_ do this, you need to shoot to kill. The one thing I've never seen a gamma get back up from is a head shot. Okay, once, but that was resolved with a second shot. If you destroy enough of the brain, even the Anomaly can't repair it."  
  
Swallowing his concerns, Reid tipped his head back, keeping his face visible in the window and his eyes turned toward the room, as Chaz's mouth moved across his neck. "You wanted Hafidha for this, not me. She's a much better shot."  
  
"And I'd never be able to look at her again, so _no_. Besides, you're already here, and the unsub's pretty sure we're having the kind of relationship where that... _romance novel cover_ I got from your boyfriend is an appropriate addition to my bedroom."  
  
Sol leaned against a tree, smoking, a book in his hand, trying to look like he was just part of the scenery, just one of the neighbours. Trying to look like he wasn't watching what was going on in that room. But, if he'd had any question about whether the two most physically awkward nerds he'd ever worked with could put on a believable show, it was being answered now. They moved like they knew exactly what they were doing, exactly where all the hands and arms and knees were. He couldn't make out their faces, but the motions were smooth, no hesitation, no apologetic gestures. He thought this might be the most comfortable he'd ever seen Chaz look, with or without another person, in all the years they'd worked together, which was impressive, given that they were trying to catch a ... well, not a killer. Not yet. But, sure as hell a violent and obsessed gamma of a type he'd hoped they'd never see.  
  
Another quick look around, as if he were waiting for someone -- the inevitable lost pizza driver, perhaps -- and he took a long drag of the cigarette that hung from his fingers, enjoying the stillness, but worrying they'd made a mistake. There were other places that could've been next, but the unsub had seemed to be following Chaz, jumping ahead of the next obvious move. But, the return home had been in the presence of so many other people. And now, only one room was occupied. Maybe they were going to find another piece of finger, left in the middle of the coffee table, or something. And none of them would've seen it land. Except Hafidha, he supposed. He couldn't imagine she didn't have most of the place wired for video, for just this kind of emergency.  
  
But, the rage involved in destroying that picture... He had some serious doubts that was what Chaz said it was. There were a very small number of reasons a picture of _him_ would've ended up destroyed like that. Reid's reaction -- to suggest this kind of trap -- made it likely he didn't think that picture had been Chaz, either. They were trying to make the unsub jealous. They were trying to interrupt the sequence, to get the unsub to stop leaving parts of fingers and to attack Reid, instead. And if something was going to keep this person still long enough for Chaz to pull some voodoo brainwash shit, stabbing the guy from Down the Hall might do it.  
  
He didn't have to like it. It was probably going to work.  
  
Sol was surprised by the voice next to him. He hadn't heard anyone approach.  
  
"Hey, man, you got a light?"  
  
He turned to find a slender, dark-skinned man standing beside him, holding a pack of Djarum Blacks that he was in the middle of pulling one out of. "Nice shade of purple," he said, noticing the guy's eye shadow and tucking the book back into his pocket. He held out his own cigarette instead of reaching for his lighter, watching the way the man's hands moved inside the purple and black striped gloves he wore.  
  
As the guy tried to light the clove, Sol spotted the way his pinky didn't move. The side of the guy's right hand was swollen and the pinky stuck out like the leg on that stuffed spider Hafidha had started keeping on her desk. Sol had a couple pairs of gloves like that, not that he wore them often -- the fake fingers were more trouble than they were worth, something this kid was going to find out, if he lived.  
  
The stun gun came back out of the pocket he'd put the book into. Shoot first and apologise later, he figured, jamming the thing against the dude's thigh. He hadn't been thrilled that Chaz had handed him his own personal stun gun rather than a Bureau issued taser until right that moment. He'd assumed distance was going to be the problem. Instead, the problem was leather. And a pissed-off gamma.  
  
The flash of light and colour from near where he'd last spotted Sol caught Reid's attention. "We have a--"  
  
The sentence hadn't even left his mouth when the barrel of the gun touched his forehead, over Chaz's shoulder. An androgynous figure in black and purple crouched on the top of the dresser between Chaz and the wall, one hand holding the gun pressed to Reid's head, the other holding the knife at Chaz's throat.  
  
"I remember you, Orpheus. You and your 'only once'. You and your 'not interested in making friends'."  
  
Chaz breathed slowly, his entire body perfectly still. He closed his eyes and tried to get a grip on the other minds in the room, to find his way into whoever this was, behind him. To get a grip, without getting his throat slashed, which was going to be difficult. This was where he'd usually resort to fear, where he'd panic someone into submission, but that was likely to get them both killed, this time. He didn't have the space to do something like that. Neither of them could get out of the way of that first panicked clench. And unless he could see, he was limited in his other options.  
  
"But, you're behind me, so I don't know if I remember you. We met in a club," he guessed, knowing _probably_ which one, if he was being called Orpheus. "I'm not going to know your voice. It's just too loud to really get a grip on what someone sounds like without the music."  
  
Reid's eyes remained open, as he tried to get the figure behind Chaz to look at him, but not shoot him. He could feel Chaz's fear as if it were his own, blending into his own. He'd anticipated something with a little more distance, but now he understood the visit to this room had let the unsub judge the positions of everything in it. And that meant they were lucky to be here, now. He could feel Chaz's heart speed up at the thought, only to level out over the next long breath.  
  
"You don't know me. I didn't want you to know me until you were ready. But, when you were ready, when I laid you a trail straight back to me, what do I find?"  
  
The knife, Chaz realised, as it bit into his neck, was one of his own, probably grabbed out of the kitchen on the way up. Four steps, if the limit was fifteen feet. Three if it was twenty. Plenty of time to pick up a knife before either of them realised what they were seeing through the window.  
  
"What do I find, but you've been making friends of the not only once kind. And that's not right. I didn't go to all this trouble for you not to even look my way. So, we're going to fix that."  
  
A name; he'd finally gotten a name without setting anything else off. Things of immediate relevance were usually easy -- people usually thought about what they were doing or what they meant to do -- but very few people considered their own identities, brought them high enough for Chaz to find them without triggering memories of things that weren't necessarily useful or even safe. "And how do you mean to do that, Jack Dandy?"  
  
"Why, you do remember me! You remember me just fine, don't you, Orpheus?"  
  
Chaz could feel the scrape of a recently-shaved cheek against his own, could smell the lipstick and the brandy in every word.  
  
"Or should I call you Charles? You're not a Chuck, are you? No, not you. Definitely a Charles. Charles le magne! Charles le grande!"  
  
Chaz could feel the knife shift against his neck, the blood soaking into his collar.  
  
"I've heard you've got a big dick," Jack said, as if confiding a profound secret.  
  
Reid's lips parted around the first words he'd spoken since the gun first touched his face, his eyes on Jack's face. "He does."  
  
Jack's eyes darted up, the last thing he'd consciously remember doing. The slice on Chaz's neck grew just a bit, before the knife fell from Jack's loosened fingers.  
  
Reid saw none of it. He saw a hundred memories like waves in a sea of rejection. An older sister who'd grown up and gone to Los Angeles. Other girls laughing. Standing at a bar, under a green light. 'So I heard you're something special... A man everybody gotta have once.' Tory, only half-remembered, in a corner, drinking with three faceless women. The voice of an older woman. _His mother_ \-- no, someone's mother. 'Johnny, what are you doing, Johnny? Come away from there. Put that down before you hurt yourself, Johnny.'  
  
The gun pulled away from his head, and Reid didn't even register that anything had changed until he felt Chaz pulling him away. It was like stumbling blindly through a-- he wasn't going to think about that. And suddenly his eyes focused on the room, on the blood running down Chaz's neck. Jack looked stunned, dazed, like he'd taken a solid blow to the head, and Reid was hard-pressed to think of it as anything else, after what he'd just been dragged through.  
  
"Spencer? Hey, are you okay?" Chaz offered a hand, but didn't touch him.  
  
Reid looked about as shaken as he felt, and the nod he returned felt like his head might fall off, if he wasn't careful. "You?"  
  
"I'll--"  
  
It happened so fast, Chaz almost missed it. Jack suddenly resurfaced, like a swimmer coming up from underwater, blinking in confusion as he raised the gun. Reid seemed to be moving in slow motion, diving out of the way.  
  
"No!" Chaz yelped, twisting around to grab at Jack.  
  
The gun didn't stop moving, but only changed directions, Jack's elbow bending as Chaz grabbed his upper arm. At the sound of the shot, the front door could be heard slamming, followed a few seconds later by the bedroom door slamming open.  
  
Sol found Chaz half-sitting on the dresser, in the far corner, covered in blood and more questionable things. Reid was on the near side of the bed, half-sitting, his legs in what looked like a terribly uncomfortable position, a small pistol in one hand. What was left of the unsub was held in Chaz's hands, one on each shoulder. "There is no way you did that with a... what the hell is that, a twenty-two?"  
  
"He didn't." Chaz tipped his head down so the blood wouldn't run into his mouth. "Jack -- the unsub... We thought he was going to take a shot at Spencer. I grabbed him, and... This. He shot himself."  
  
"You do that?" Sol asked, quietly, looking over the scene.  
  
"I don't know." Chaz continued to sit still, eyes closed. "If I did, it didn't take much. I had him down, Sol. He shouldn't have been able to do _anything_. I just looked away to check on Spencer. Seconds. Nobody can shake me in _seconds_."  
  
"For what it's worth, the finger's his. The right pinky's just stuffed glove. He's probably carrying the next part." Sol paused, looking over the damage to the room. "I'm going to call back the evidence team. You got somewhere else to stay, tonight?"  
  
"Yes," Reid answered, making no move to get up. "He does."  
  
Sol nodded, taking that in and saying nothing for a long moment. "That kind of self-mutilation, Chaz... I don't think he meant to live. I think that's how he got past you. He wasn't a _threat_."  
  
"He loves me not." Reid finally untangled his legs. "He knew. He just meant to take us with him."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! We're done here! I think I mentioned there's a kinkmeme, but there's [totally a kinkmeme](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/ambiguously_anomalous/requests), and you should totally jump in. If you're interested in the strongly-implied Hot Nerds Banging or curious about that 'painting' on the wall, let me gesture toward the [Vexation of Spirit](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1058681) series, which this is probably going to get shuffled into, when I get somewhere near the right time for it.
> 
> ~~and now back to the fic i've been not writing for the last week, because i was doing this instead~~


End file.
